Who Said Misery Loves Company?
by Falling Further
Summary: It began innocently, with Grady lending his ear to a devastated Tawni. It began secretly, with Tawni demanding Grady's secrecy. It began ... to grow. How long will this secret persist? What will it become? And why am I pairing Tawni with Grady?
1. In the beginning was the text

Author's Notes: We're going to start this out pre-Sonny. I apologize Sonny fans, she'll be here before long.

* * *

It wouldn't have hit her so hard if the timing hadn't been just right.

Unfortunately, if James Conroy had one thing other than his bad boy image, it was his gift for dramatic timing.

It hadn't been a whirlwind romance, mainly because at first, Tawni refused to have anything to do with the tall boy. Tawni's initial attempts to ward away the playboy had only fueled his ardor. The blonde had found that even throwing things at him didn't do the trick. She had started with food, moved on to books, and ended up with potted plants. No matter what it was, he had the nasty habit of catching and calmly placing down the projectile; and looking amazingly cute while he did so.

So she had agreed to a date. Tawni had sat frigidly throughout the entire outing, eyeing James suspiciously in between frequent glances at a nearby clock. Even under those conditions, the brown haired action star played the part of a gentlemen so perfectly that it only took a week of badgering and three, hurled, potted plants before she agreed to a second date.

That time Tawni still played it cool, but deigned to answer his questions (albeit monosyllabically). And again, through an entire evening of "Yes", "No", and "Maybe" answers he maintained the mantle of a gentleman. And that was probably why she agreed to go out with him immediately after the next time he asked her out. That eagerness had been the beginning of her undoing.

Their third outing would have been considered a normal date by anyone's standards: dinner and a romantic comedy followed by coffee in an outdoor cafe. Anyone's standards except for those of a girl who had gotten into the habit of keeping men at arm's length. Tawni's mother had indoctrinated her in the evil ways of men, backing up her training with the real life example of her deadbeat father.

James had managed to slip past that impenetrable, emotional barrier with the cat-like grace of one of his action characters. His foray into uncharted territory had made every word, every laugh, every brief touch of their hands infinitely more potent than it should have been. With each second that passed, Tawni felt her trust towards the boy deepening. And then, at the end of the date, as they had stood outside of her dressing room door she had allowed herself to remain perfectly still while his lips drifted downwards to tease her own.

After James had disappeared down the hallway, Tawni danced into her room with her face on fire and her heart threatening to fly out of her chest. She dove directly into her red sofa and buried her growing smile into one of her fluffy, pink throw pillows.

She was in the middle of wondering when he was going to ask her out again when her phone began to buzz. A quick glance at its gleaming cover promised a text message from the boy she had just been daydreaming about. After nearly breaking her flip-phone in half due to her rush to read the text message, she immediately regretted her action. She wished she had allowed herself to bask in the glow of her first crush for a little longer before he dumped her via text message.

Tawni wasn't really surprised with the sudden, cold ending. Her mother had warned her that boys were really only interested in the chase and that the moment she gave in they would move on to the next challenge. James was even beginning to develop a reputation for being a playboy. What had she really expected?

She knew she should feel indignant. She was Tawni Hart, the cutest, most talented child actress the studio had ever seen. She was so amazing that the studio executives had created a comedy sketch show just for her to star in! … but she just couldn't summon the rage that normally came to her so easily.

The blond girl wanted to be angry at James for playing a classic game with her heart, but she couldn't summon the strength. Instead she allowed her head to fall back into her pillow, obscuring her face as the sobs began to wrack her body.

* * *

Tawni got up hours later, unsure if she had fallen asleep or not. The only thing she knew was that she felt severely dehydrated. The small refrigerator underneath her vanity mirror was empty. Well, it was always empty, but that didn't stop her from kicking it shut. It closed with a satisfying, bombastic slam.

As her gaze drifted back upwards, Tawni was shocked to see an image of herself smiling in the mirror. Mere hours ago, a similar image had smiled back at her from the same position. Only its makeup hadn't been smeared down the sides of her face. Its clothing hadn't looked like it had been slept in. Its eyes didn't look like they were about to cry.

When she noticed her vision beginning to blur, the blond teenager ripped her eyes away from the mirror and began to systematically remove all of the things that reminded her of the date. She huddled over the sink and scrubbed the makeup off of her face, then tore off her clothing and tossed it into and around the closest garbage can.

This time when she looked into the mirror, she found herself clad in only her underwear. After running through a handful of glamorous poses, she came to the obvious conclusion that … she was hot. Who the hell did James think he was to dump her?

There was that indignant feeling she had expected earlier. Tawni was moved by the urge to break something, but nothing around her seemed to be suitable for the task. After all, everything around her all belonged to her. She quickly reached into her closet and pulled out a fistful of clothing. After tossing on a random top and pants, she moved towards her exit with her mind beginning to turn. Where could she go in the middle of the night to privately break someone else's stuff?

* * *

On her way to the prop room, Tawny lamented briefly that the only way she could vent was by demolishing inanimate objects. There just wasn't anyone she could talk to anymore. Her "friends" back home had stopped communicating with her once she became famous. Her mom would just take the opportunity to bash on men for another week. Her current dressing roommate was a stuck-up know it all. Nico and Grady were practically gay lovers. And Zora was just … weird. Why couldn't Marshall hire some nice, down-to-earth girl her age who Tawni could unload all of her problems on?

Before the blond girl could begin to imagine what her dream friend would look like, the prop room door stood before her. Gathering all of her rage into her leg, she kicked at the door with all of the force she could muster.

It didn't budge.

Stubbornly ignoring the pain shooting up her leg, Tawni flung the door open … and found herself standing face to face with Grady.

The cast mates shared a pure moment of stunned silence. Neither of the two had expected to find the other at the other side of the opened door in any capacity, let alone these rare forms: Grady not attached at the hip to Nico; Tawni without make-up and dressed in mismatched, loose clothing. The door was slammed shut on Grady's face as the blond teenager regained her senses. The closed door signaled Tawni's brain to start moving. What the hell was the Wonder Klutz doing here? Did that mean Nico was in there too?

Grady was in the process of rubbing feeling back into the nose that Tawni had just slammed a door on when the nose-assaulter herself re-opened the door and breezed past him. The boy turned to find Tawni scouring the room, including some of Zora's favorite hiding places. After shutting the sarcophagus door, Tawni turned her narrowing eyes towards Grady. "You're alone?" she demanded sharply, turning the question into a verbal jab.

The husky boy responded with a nod, not trusting his voice to be below a nervous falsetto.

"Where's Nico?"

"Da … date," squeaked Grady, grimacing at the high pitch of his voice.

"Oh, that's right. He actually has some female fans," said Tawni, her voice trailing off as she walked towards the couch. Now that she wasn't searching for people she noticed the paused video game on the big screen television, the opened bag of potato chips, and the half empty 2-liter of Coke. It felt like she was interrupting some kind of ritual. Aiming a smirk at Grady, she asked, "Do this a lot, huh?"

"Friday is kinda Nico's date night," answered Grady, his voice pitch thankfully under control.

"Stupid date nights," cursed Tawni under her breath. The blond girl fell backwards onto the couch and began to devour the chips one at a time, making sure to completely swallow the chewed up chip before placing a new one in her mouth.

The boy stood fixed in place as he attempted to figure out what he should be doing at the moment. After flirting briefly with the idea of telling Tawni his newest joke about the naked chihuahua and the dancing monkey, Grady narrowed it down to two options. The first was that he could open the door behind him, enter the hallway, and escape screaming at the top of his lungs. The other was that he could calmly walk next to Tawni, making sure to avoid eye contact, sit down as far away from her as he possibly could, and attempt to continue his paused game. While the first option appealed to the non-confrontational core of his being, he realized that he hadn't saved his video game in hours, and leaving the video game system on overnight could have dire consequences.

A life without video games wasn't something he was willing to endure, so he began to creep towards the couch taking small, hopefully inaudible steps. Grady had made it halfway towards his controller when Tawni looked up and hit him with a potent glare. She didn't say a word, but that look's meaning was hardwired into the male psyche. It meant go away. Now.

Grady was on his way out of the room with his tail between his legs lamenting both the loss of hours of work and the possible damage to his gaming system when he heard Tawni call out, "Wait."

She wasn't entirely sure why she didn't want him to leave. If she had tried to rationalize it, it had been most likely due to the fact that she was beginning to feel more lonely with every step he took towards the door. The girl seemed to be experiencing something similar to empathy with Grady, who always seemed like a lost puppy without Nico by his side. When Grady turned to look at her, she pointed towards the reclining easy chair next to her with the same commanding presence of her glare. He had no choice but to lumber into the designated spot.

Once he sat down on the chair seat, the ranting floodgates were opened.

* * *

The floodgates closed hours later for reasons unclear to either of the teenagers. There were still plenty of supplies, considering Tawni had stopped at around 5 chips and hadn't touched the Coke bottle at all, and the girl certainly hadn't run out of things to talk about. It almost felt like he had attended a planned out seminar. She had begun ranting about James, but had branched out into a general dissertation on the evils of men. Tawni seemed to know the subject extremely well, and by the end of her speech Grady was even starting to hate himself a little.

There was no real announcement that Tawni was done speaking. She could have very easily segued into the average male's general lack of refinement. Instead, she merely stopped speaking and looked at Grady oddly. She hadn't really expected him to stay throughout the entire lecture, but he had; and she realized that she was feeling a lot better right now because of it. And she hadn't even broken anything.

Tawni tended to avoid feelings of gratitude thanks to a peerless sense of entitlement, but she found that she just couldn't dodge the emotion in this instance. Still, it left a bad taste in her mouth to feel that way towards the most gross, least attractive of her cast mates. Suddenly finding her gaze averted away from Grady, she warned, "If you tell anyone that you saw me like this," her hand swept from her head downwards to indicate her disheveled state, "I'll take one of Zora's axes to your face." Tawni then exited the room wrapped up in a convincing, fake huff of anger that felt more like embarrassment.

After Tawni had stormed out of the room, Grady finally allowed himself to peek at an overhanging clock. He felt like some of Nico's essential "Tips for Dealing With the Ladies" had just saved his life. Take for instance the "Don't fall asleep while the lady is talking. And no, you can't watch television or play video games either. Man, just listen when the lady is talking, okay?" rule. Grady had a feeling that if he had broken that rule at any point, Tawni would have come at him like a multi-fisted, blond whirlwind of pain and screeches. Instead she had just sat there and talked to him nonchalantly, almost as if they were equals. He said almost because she had been the only one speaking for over two, uninterrupted hours. Still, it was a definite improvement over her usual act of outright ignoring him.

Grady moved to his game controller to hopefully find a save point. It was getting late, and even though it was a Friday night, his parents, and everyone else he knew, knew he wasn't out on a date. If he didn't head back home, they would start worrying about him. And yet, even though he had lost half an evening's worth of his private video game time, he didn't feel cheated at all. It probably had something to do with what Nico told him after he had left his best friend waiting for him at an arcade for an entire afternoon. When you're talking to a beautiful lady, time doesn't seem to matter anymore.

The boy hadn't even been able to lay his hand on his controller before the door flew open, revealing a narrow-eyed Tawni. The shiftiness of her gaze belied some kind of internal struggle. Finally she looked directly at Grady, barked out a word, and marched out of the room feeling better.

After watching the door close lazily, Grady fell backwards into the couch. His eyes rolled back into his head as he checked and re-checked his memory. That couldn't be right. Did Tawni Hart just thank him?

* * *

Author's Notes: Yep, that's right. Tawni and Grady. Many of you are probably wondering why. I saw an opening, and I went for it! It's going to be a while before I can start pulling the romance out of this particular couple, but I suspect that the end result is going to be painfully sweet. In all honesty, I believe that these two characters have the greatest potential for emotional growth in the show. Hopefully I can use my words to highlight that potential for you.

See you next time,

Falling Further


	2. A new twist on a weekly ritual

Grady didn't sleep well that night. The boy had prepared perfectly for a good night's rest though. He had gotten into bed on time (roughly around 2 am), and even managed to sneak in a late night snack before heading to his room. Yet even after feeling the softness of the pillow against his cheek, his mind remained occupied with what Tawni had let slip before leaving the room ... the second time. After turning the sound over and over in his mind, the teenager was now convinced that she had said, "Thanks." After all, spanks, shanks, thunks, and tanks just seemed out of context. And hilarious.

After chuckling heartily into his pillow, he flipped around and stared at the ceiling. Did this mean that Tawni was going to start treating him like a human being during rehearsals and shows? If it did, then he needed to prepare some good jokes to share. After all, what did a guy like him have to talk about with a girl like her?

He spent the remainder of his waking moments thinking up different things that a unicycling priest could crash into.

* * *

Zora's gloved hand waved dismissively, signaling Grady to shove Nico towards the stacked cardboard boxes. This time, after four re-sets of experience under his belt, the spry teen tumbled directly into the boxes, sending them flying in many directions, but most importantly towards Grady's head. After feeling the impact of the box, Grady took a dramatic pratfall onto the safety net hidden behind the boxing ring. All that was left was for Zora to throw her hands in the air and complain, "Oh NOW he can box!" That was when the sound of flatulence ripped through the air.

There was no need to look around. There was only one man in the set capable of ruining a perfect take with a fart. The infamous cameraman immediately placed his shoulder-mounted camera on the ground and began to run as an enraged Marshall charged at him at full speed.

It took two rounds of laughter before Nico was able to start breathing again. As he wiped at his tearing eyes, he snuck a peek at his best friend. The rest of the mirth entirely drained from his system when he found Grady looking off into the distance, his face expressionless. After picking himself up off of the ground, he walked towards his best friend and jabbed him in the arm with one of his boxing-gloved hands. Even after the punch, it took a couple of seconds before Grady acknowledged his presence. "Hey, what's wrong man? Fartin' Franky just ruined a shot and you didn't even crack a smile."

"Oh man, I missed that?" grinned Grady, his right hand shooting up to scratch the back of his head.

"Er, yeah," said Nico suspiciously. "Are you okay?" After Grady nodded, Nico shrugged it off and moved to help the stage crew gather the cardboard boxes for another run.

Once Nico's attention was off of him, Grady's gaze drifted back towards the main studio entrance. Tawni was close to thirty minutes late. That in itself wasn't that unusual, but Grady had been rehearsing his new priest joke endlessly in his head since completing it during breakfast. He was anxious to show off his new familiarity with Tawni to the entire set by sharing his joke with her. His door staring was soon interrupted as everyone around them prepared for another shoot.

Tawni didn't stroll into the studio for another 10 minutes. The blond teenager was immediately bum rushed by Marshall who gave her a quick lecture about her tardiness. The lecture happened so frequently that it was a shooting ritual of sorts, and the producers had gotten into the habit of pushing Tawni's scenes later in the shoots. After it was over, the girl walked towards the make-up area behind the set.

When she passed by Grady, the husky boy asked cheerfully, "Hey Tawni, wanna hear my newest joke about a unicycling priest?"

Tawni breezed past him without batting an eyelash.

"Oh, she's cold as ice!" chuckled Nico, throwing his arm around Grady's shoulders.

"Like usual," replied Grady, his tone only slightly more subdued than it should have been. He allowed his joke to roll out of his mind with his surprising feeling of disappointment. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it looked like that Friday night hadn't really meant anything at all.

* * *

Grady carefully laid out his armload of snacks. It was his standard fare plus a few uncharacteristic additions. The half-liter of diet soda stood out like a sore thumb next to his 2-liter of the normal stuff, and the platter of vegetables appeared out of place surrounded by potato chips and a hoagie sandwich.

As he bent over to turn on the video game system and grab one of the controllers, he allowed himself to acknowledge that he had no intention of touching the unusual foodstuffs. They were just there in case he happened to have some company. Whoever that may be.

The larger boy spent the first hour of his Friday night gaming marathon with his attention split between the television screen and the door behind him. Every time he thought he heard a noise behind him, he would turn around expectantly. And find nothing happening.

A couple of hours after that, he had given up on turning around every time he thought he heard a noise, instead tossing a glance over his shoulder every time he hit a lull in his video game. It turned out to be a fruitless exercise. At some point he realized that he was running out of snacks at an accelerated rate.

By the end of the night, he figured he must have turned around at least a million times. His neck would be reminding him about it tomorrow. She … no one had showed up all night. Grady shrugged it off. It wasn't like he had been expecting anyone. The extras he had brought hadn't even gone to waste. Once he had run out of his normal snacks, he had moved on to them. And now they were no more. Grady stood up and trashed the empty containers of food and drink.

Even though he felt good that a question he had been asking himself for a week had been answered, he walked out of the room making a disgusted face. Diet soda was a crime against humanity that someone had to pay for.

Oh, that would make a good sketch.

* * *

Tawni sat in front of her vanity mirror, tracing an imaginary circle on the counter in front of her with a random make-up brush. She was bored out of her mind. It was another Friday night, and that meant another evening spent silently brooding to herself.

She tried to remember what she had done on those Friday's maybe a month ago, before James Conroy had started leading her towards a doomed relationship. They had been remarkably similar to the one she was experiencing right now, only the mirror image of herself had been smiling a lot more. She would be trying on different types of make-up and costumes, reminding herself of why the world loved her. Well, it was worth a shot.

It didn't take her long to slide a good looking dress over her body, but she couldn't find a matching set of shoes. Whatever, if she used the vanity mirror to look at herself, it wasn't like she could see her feet. She stepped out of the closet and in front of the reflective surface. After catching sight of herself sashaying around the room in the form-fitting red dress, Tawni stopped and turned away from the mirror. It just didn't feel the same. Something was broken. It was almost like she didn't feel the world's love for her.

That was it. She hadn't felt that feeling since she received the fateful text that had forced her to smash her cell-phone into pieces. After allowing her eyes to drift guiltily towards the trash can that had served as her formally beloved cell's final resting place, she realized that that wasn't an entirely true thought. After all, she had felt that seemingly lost feeling one time. On that same night, when she had held Grady's devoted concentration just by saying whatever came to her mind.

That had been a Friday night too, and it had felt like she was walking in on a weekly ritual. He couldn't be there every Friday night, though. A teenager who was a "star" in a television show would have to be an astronomical loser to spend every Friday night alone, playing video games. Tawni's right hand covered her mouth as she began to analyze her memories of Grady. She remember his doughy physique, his frequent laughter, and his stupid jokes.

It was possible.

The girl padded towards the prop room, drawn more by curiosity than anything else. Or so she told herself. If there hadn't been anything else, the girl would have surely taken the time to put on something at least resembling shoes.

The heavy metal door opened, unleashing a cacophony of multiple, revving engines into the hallway. There he was on the couch, hopping left and right along with the screen in front of him. Because the television was blasting at such a loud volume, Grady didn't even notice that someone had entered the room until the door closed loudly.

This time he was surprised, not startled, to find Tawni standing behind him, looking at him questioningly. Somehow, even though it had been weeks since that last time the girl had said anything directly to him, he knew she would come back. Still, her last wardrobe of an oversize sweatshirt and polyester pants hadn't prepared him properly for the sight of Tawni in a tight, red dress. As he felt his face beginning to burn up, he realized that he wouldn't be able to keep his voice under control this time either. Fighting hard to keep his eyes from bugging out of his head, Grady paused the video game and shakily pointed towards the table in front of him.

Tawni recognized the effect her dress was having on him with a smug smile. This was the world as it should be. She was Tawni Hart after all. Approaching the table revealed a pile of snacks that were more healthy than they were the last time she had been there. Well roughly half of them were healthy, and subsequently untouched by Grady's hands. "Are you on a diet or something?" asked Tawni as she sat on the edge of the reclining chair and reached for a stick of celery.

"So, something like that," squeaked Grady, too embarrassed to reveal that he had been bringing the more wholesome snacks specifically for her.

After finishing the celery stick, Tawni asked suspiciously, "There's no one else here, right?" A brief nod from Grady was all she needed to start complaining about Zora's surplus of mechanical contraptions and to signal the start of an infrequent weekly ritual between the two cast mates.

* * *

While Grady was just staying the course by spending his Friday nights playing a random assortment of video games, he would occasionally have a blond visitor who would talk non-stop for hours on end. It was an arrangement that left both of the teenagers feeling better about themselves afterwards, and it remained a perfect secret. Now that the rules had been established, neither even looked in the direction of the other outside of their private meetings. Judging solely on how the two interacted, or rather did not interact, in public, no one would have been able to figure out that they were slowly beginning to depend on each other.

That is, until someone figured it out.

* * *

Author's Notes: The story is progressing according to plan when I manage to get into the writing mood. Most of this, roughly 80%, was finally written today. This means a couple of things. One, I need to find some way to get into the writing mood more often. Two, I'm most likely going to come back and edit the hell out of this one at some point.

I'm putting it out so quickly after it was finished because I know that any editing I'm going to do to this are going to be detail related, and I wanted to give my reviewers something to chew on while I think up the next chapter. I hope the story is progressing the way you guys want it to. The way it's moving right now, I'm predicting at least four more chapters for this short story.

Thanks for reading guys, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story!

Falling Further


End file.
